Review: A Necessary Death by Terri Karsten

Immersive, clever, and impeccably detailed, A Necessary Death by Terri Karsten is a charming historical mystery with a healthy dash of pastoral romance.

Freshly widowed and left penniless by her seafaring husband, Penelope Corbitt is heading towards a new life in colonial Boston with her two children – 16-year-old Nabby and young Nathaniel. On the journey north, however, accompanied by her dour brother-in-law, a stagecoach accident diverts them to a roadside tavern, where Penelope promptly finds a dead man in the outhouse.

Miles Turner, the gruff innkeeper, constable, and a fellow widower, may not appreciate Penelope’s presumptuous nature, but her sharp mind and insistent desire to help in myriad ways make her begrudgingly invaluable. It soon becomes clear that the death was no accident, but solving a murder in a flea-bitten, tight-lipped town is no easy task. Between the hamlet’s churning gossip mill, a slow-moving town council, and bold-faced prejudice that will almost certainly point towards an Indian named Sam as the killer culprit.

As Penelope and her family unravel more secrets, they are drawn deeper into the deadly drama. Poisonous plots, grudges, and illegitimate children emerge, and soon death comes calling once again, revealing that neither man nor beast will be safe until this backwater murderer is found. When a long-lost love appears, seemingly back from the dead, it threatens to shatter Penelope and her family’s sense of belonging and purpose that they’ve finally begun to build.

There is a rugged and untamed element to the sleuthing at the heart of this 18th-century tale, while the investigation has the procedural style of any contemporary whodunit, which is engaging and believable, given the nuanced realism of each character. Miles and Penelope make an unlikely team, but their combative nature is only a precursor to gradual respect, and Karsten draws out their budding connection with patient grace.

Thematically rich, the mystery delves into a complex tangle of outdated gender roles and societal expectations. The oppressed position of women from this era is a constant undercurrent of the story, as are the burdens of maternal responsibility, godly conduct, and marital duties – whether your husband is alive or not. The expected imbalances of womanly innocence and masculine resolve are often turned on their head, exemplified in the evolving relationship between Miles and the Widow Corbitt. Penelope is a vibrant anachronism, embracing a freedom of thought that echoes Austen’s beloved heroines: “Damn propriety and society’s rules and good sense.”

The prose is lyrical, creatively descriptive, and comfortably paced, even with elaborate scene-crafting, and the dialogue is razor-sharp and laced with more humor than one might expect to find between colonial-era characters. With polished language that exhibits the obvious efforts of a keen-eyed editor from the first page, the novel has an engrossing balance of levity, intrigue, and thoughtful thematic exploration, probing into grief in its myriad forms, and the inevitable guilt that comes with forging emotional connections with those left behind, which is rare for a mystery in any era.

Impressively consistent in its historical tone and visceral in its portrayal of life more than two centuries ago, this is a deftly plotted and confidently penned mystery that keeps you guessing.